Libra is I'm assuming going to end with a different take on the Kennedy assassination, one of many hundred alternate theories a quick google search and youll be spending hours, or even days pouring through accounts of what "really happened".
Why is this so appealing to us, why are there entire communities that debate the trajectory of a single bullet for months on end? To me it's largely a comforting fact to feel like you understand a travesty such as the JFK assassination.
In class 9-11 was brought up as well. 9-11 is arguably one of the worst events in American history. Those who propose conspiracy theories are simply trying to forward their understanding. It's comforting to think that theres more to a massacre than a body count.
I can't help but think of Slaughter-House Five as I type that. It's odd the matter of factness with which death is treated by Vonnuget. It's unnerving to think that you can actually understand why something such as the Dresden firebombing or JFK assassination happened. Because to understand why something like that was or would be done, equates a certain level of your thinking with those who perpetrated the crime. And a conspiracy theory is just a way to push that understanding off another level putting another level of disconnect between you and the human being you're trying not to understand.
This is why Libra is so intriguing to me right now. Lee is presented as a person with hopes and aspirations the same as you or me, not some maniacal murdering pawn that got caught up in conspiracy. I hope the novel continues down this path as the ideas behind what could drive Lee to shoot a man, let alone the president of the united states is endlessly fascinating to me.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Race in Kevin and Dana's relationship
Kevin and Dana have by most measures a very stable relationship, they do run into a rocky patch when Kevin's family expresses their displeasure over his marrying a black women. But nothing compared to him literally being forced to treat Dana as a slave.
Is it possible to ignore race after such an incident? Was it even possible before? To me even now, let alone 1970's America race is a part of any conversation I have I've been conditioned and do see race. I notice when in conversation whether I'm talking to a Black,White, Asian etc.. man. One of the identifiers of a person to me is what race they are.
Now I'm not sure the ways in which the way I perceive people has any impact on the way I act. I like to tell myself it doesn't but I can't shake the idea that I still do. Especially when talking about a racially charged subject, such as the recent Trayvon Martin Case I would chose my words much more deliberately if I was addressing the Apollo theater on the subject, as opposed to the Metropolitan Opera.
I can't speak for Kevin as a person, but I've seen very few people who escape such behaviors. It's impossible to avoid race when we previously used it as the prime measure of social standing. I'm still surprised at the strength of Kevin and Dana's relationship and really admire the amount of respect they treat each other with in such bleak situations.
Is it possible to ignore race after such an incident? Was it even possible before? To me even now, let alone 1970's America race is a part of any conversation I have I've been conditioned and do see race. I notice when in conversation whether I'm talking to a Black,White, Asian etc.. man. One of the identifiers of a person to me is what race they are.
Now I'm not sure the ways in which the way I perceive people has any impact on the way I act. I like to tell myself it doesn't but I can't shake the idea that I still do. Especially when talking about a racially charged subject, such as the recent Trayvon Martin Case I would chose my words much more deliberately if I was addressing the Apollo theater on the subject, as opposed to the Metropolitan Opera.
I can't speak for Kevin as a person, but I've seen very few people who escape such behaviors. It's impossible to avoid race when we previously used it as the prime measure of social standing. I'm still surprised at the strength of Kevin and Dana's relationship and really admire the amount of respect they treat each other with in such bleak situations.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Kindred's use of time travel
Kindred is very different from a book such as ragtime or slaughterhouse five in one large sense that I think made it the most "fictional" book we will read all semester. Which to me is the serious nature with which time travel is implemented in Dana and Kevin's life.
It's not that there's something I simply can't believe does exist in our reality such as as slaughter-house five and tralfalmadore. Tralfalmadore is a concept in the end that doesn't matter if its real to anyone but Billy. Whereas in Kindred time-travel is experienced and understood by multiple people.
Now I want to say this helps the novel, bu in the end its simply adding more distance between us and antebellum America. Which to me is the exact opposite of what Octavia Butler is setting out to achieve by breaking free from the traditional slave narrative, and using time travel. Dana is us, our values in a harsher time it shows us just how disconnected we are. yet while it does this it continues to push us further away showing that you would need something as supernatural as the time travel to even get a small glimpse of the Weylins plantation functioning as it once was, which in a larger sense is an "inside view" of the system that slavery created. The time machine just serves to distance us further.
But to me this isn't a particularly large failure, if you talk long enough you can construe it in such a way that it helps convey the books idea of distance, the idea that the only way we could get the best picture of early america is time travel. I may be reading the priority of butler's themes wrong, she may me value this idea of distance over portraying her story as one of the most realistic takes you'll ever get on slavery.
It's not that there's something I simply can't believe does exist in our reality such as as slaughter-house five and tralfalmadore. Tralfalmadore is a concept in the end that doesn't matter if its real to anyone but Billy. Whereas in Kindred time-travel is experienced and understood by multiple people.
Now I want to say this helps the novel, bu in the end its simply adding more distance between us and antebellum America. Which to me is the exact opposite of what Octavia Butler is setting out to achieve by breaking free from the traditional slave narrative, and using time travel. Dana is us, our values in a harsher time it shows us just how disconnected we are. yet while it does this it continues to push us further away showing that you would need something as supernatural as the time travel to even get a small glimpse of the Weylins plantation functioning as it once was, which in a larger sense is an "inside view" of the system that slavery created. The time machine just serves to distance us further.
But to me this isn't a particularly large failure, if you talk long enough you can construe it in such a way that it helps convey the books idea of distance, the idea that the only way we could get the best picture of early america is time travel. I may be reading the priority of butler's themes wrong, she may me value this idea of distance over portraying her story as one of the most realistic takes you'll ever get on slavery.
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